Polly Holliday, beloved for her iconic “Kiss my grits” catchphrase as Flo in “Alice,” built an impressive legacy across stage and screen during her celebrated 60-year career.
Polly Holliday, the versatile performer who captured hearts nationwide as the spirited waitress Flo in the beloved sitcom “Alice,” while also building an impressive theatrical legacy spanning decades, died on Tuesday at her Manhattan residence. She was 88.
Her character Flo’s signature catchphrase “Kiss my grits” became a cultural touchstone, yet it was just one highlight in her rich and diverse performing career.
The news was announced by her longtime friend and theatrical representative Dennis Aspland. Her passing follows the recent death of Linda Lavin, who portrayed the series’ namesake character.
Cast photo of the waitresses at Mel’s Diner from the television program Alice. From left: Beth Howland as Vera, Linda Lavin as Alice, and Polly Holliday as Flo.
Photo credit: CBS Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
On “Alice,” audiences delighted in Flo’s trademark response to any annoyance – a brief pause, followed by her syrupy Southern drawl delivering her famous catchphrase “Kiss my grits” with perfect comic timing.
The series, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1974 film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” premiered on CBS in August 1976. Ms. Holliday portrayed Florence Jean Castleberry, a flirtatious redhead sporting an elaborately styled wig with precisely arranged waves and curls. Her character, a three-time divorcee with an irrepressible appetite for romance, addressed everyone as “sugar,” stubbornly refused to wear glasses despite needing them, and had no qualms about celebrating her many charms.
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In one memorable scene, she explained her appeal to her employer (played by Vic Tayback) at the show’s setting, the fictional Mel’s Diner in Phoenix: “I’m attractive, I’m a good talker, I’m a good dancer, and the list goes on and on.”
Ms. Holliday’s portrayal earned her multiple Emmy nominations and back-to-back Golden Globe Awards for best supporting actress in television in 1979 and 1980, matching the achievement of her co-star Ms. Lavin.
However, Flo was just one chapter in her storied career. She made a memorable appearance in the 1984 holiday horror-comedy “Gremlins,” which became a Christmas favorite. As the wealthy and malicious Mrs. Deagle, described by The New York Times critic Vincent Canby as “Kingston Falls’s own wicked witch,” she met a dramatic end when mischievous gremlins tampered with her stair-lift, sending her flying through an upstairs window into the snowy yard below.
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Her stage career was equally distinguished. In 1990, she received a Tony Award nomination for best featured actress for her compelling performance in a revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
In this production, she embodied the role of a boisterous, high-strung Mississippi matriarch wedded to a husband (Big Daddy, portrayed by Charles Durning) who harbored deep resentment towards her. Frank Rich, in his Times critique, lauded her portrayal, describing her as “a poignant Big Mama” who emerged as “a rending figure within the thunderstorm of the denouement.”
The theater remained Ms. Holliday’s deepest passion throughout her career. “An actor faces a disadvantage if they don’t spend considerable time performing live,” she expressed to The Tampa Bay Times in 1992. “The stage offers the invaluable opportunity to refine your craft night after night.”
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Polly Dean Holliday entered the world on July 2, 1937, in the small Alabama town of Jasper, situated northwest of Birmingham, and spent her formative years in Childersburg, a modest community southeast of the city. Her parents were Ernest Sullivan Holliday, who earned his living as a truck driver, and Velma (Cain) Holliday.
During her time at Childersburg High School, her peers recognized her artistic gifts, voting her the most talented student in her graduating class. She pursued piano studies at Alabama College for Women (now known as the University of Montevallo), while also participating in several productions with the college’s theater ensemble. Following her 1959 graduation, she briefly pursued a career as a music educator.
While enrolled at Florida State University to study music education, she found herself increasingly drawn to the drama department, eventually joining the prestigious Asolo Repertory Theater in Sarasota in 1962.
She dedicated nearly ten years to the theater, mastering her craft through performances in works by literary giants including Shakespeare, Molière, Chekhov, Shaw, Dickens, and others. A standout role during this period was her portrayal of Madame Defarge in a musical adaptation of “A Tale of Two Cities.”
Upon relocating to New York, she launched her theatrical career. In 1972, she shared the stage with Ruby Dee in “Wedding Band,” Alice Childress’s powerful drama exploring an interracial romance, at the Public Theater.
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This production also marked her screen debut when it was adapted for ABC television in 1974. Times critic John J. O’Connor praised the film as “powerful, moving and occasionally very funny.”
Ms. Holliday made her Broadway entrance in 1974, portraying a highly susceptible Southern matron in Murray Schisgal’s comedy “All Over Town,” under Dustin Hoffman’s direction.
Later, she assisted Mr. Hoffman in developing his character for the 1982 film “Tootsie,” where he played an actor masquerading as an actress. His character-within-a-character, Dorothy Michaels, featured a smooth Southern accent and, reminiscent of Ms. Holliday’s Flo Castleberry, an intimidating temper.
Ms. Holliday graced the Broadway stage on three notable occasions. Her first return featured a co-starring role alongside Jean Stapleton in the delightful comedy “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1986). Following her performance in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” she took on the role of the overprotective mother to the heroine in a 1994 revival of William Inge’s “Picnic.”
David Richards, in his review for The Times, commended her performance for bringing “a revelatory spin” to her character (coincidentally also named Flo), who reflects with bitterness on being “once the town beauty but wasted every advantage that nature gave her.”
Her theatrical journey continued at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1988, where she embodied the role of Amanda Wingfield in Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie.” She later graced the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia in 2002 with her presence in Tom Stoppard’s “Every Good Boy Deserves Favor,” and illuminated Lincoln Center in 2000 with her performance in Arthur Laurents’s “The Time of the Cuckoo.”
In the Off Broadway circuit, Ms. Holliday showcased her talents in “A Quarrel of Sparrows” (1993), James Duff’s comedy. Ben Brantley of The Times noted her performance for emanating “a refreshingly touching air of willed, cheerful imperturbability.”
She particularly shone in several comedies penned by John Guare. In “Marco Polo Sings a Solo” (1998), she delivered what Charles Isherwood in Variety described as “one of the play’s silliest and paradoxically most moving monologues,” as her character revealed a past life as a man.
Her versatility continued to shine in “Chaucer in Rome” (2001), where she portrayed an artist’s embarrassingly touristy mother from Queens. In Mr. Guare’s “A Few Stout Individuals” (2002), The Star-Ledger of Newark praised her portrayal of Ulysses S. Grant’s “desperately cheerful wife,” while The Associated Press dubbed her performance “fluttery and wonderful.”
Television, however, remained a constant draw. Ms. Holliday’s small screen journey began with six episodes of “Search for Tomorrow” in 1974, where she played a “prison inmate leader.”
Following nearly four seasons on “Alice” (which continued without her until 1985), she headlined her own comedy spinoff, “Flo,” where her character purchased a dilapidated bar in her Texas hometown. The series ran for 29 episodes during the 1980-81 season.
Ms. Holliday’s television career flourished with appearances in numerous made-for-TV movies, including notable performances in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (1976), “You Can’t Take It With You” (1979), and the heartwarming “The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story” (1983). Her small screen presence extended to various series, with memorable roles in “The Golden Girls” (1986), “Amazing Stories” (1986), “The Equalizer” (1988), and “Homicide: Life on the Streets” (1996).
In “The Client” (1995-96), she portrayed the nurturing mother and housemate to a recently divorced attorney (JoBeth Williams). Her recurring role on “Home Improvement” as Tim Allen’s witty, svelte mother-in-law spanned five seasons between 1993 and 1999.
Ms. Holliday’s cinematic repertoire showcased her remarkable range. She embodied a protective secretary to a Florida investigator in “All the President’s Men” (1976), transformed into Robin Williams and Sally Field’s bothersome neighbor in “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993), portrayed Jonathan Winters’s animated spouse in “Moon Over Parador,” and commanded the screen as an intrepid camp director managing twin troublemakers in “The Parent Trap” (1998).
Her final film role came in the 2010 drama “Fair Game,” portraying the worried mother of exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame.
She had no surviving immediate family members.
While Ms. Holliday held genuine fondness for her “Alice” character, she frequently noted the inauthenticity of her catchphrase “Kiss my grits.”
“That expression wasn’t rooted in Southern culture or reality,” she explained to The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in 2003. “It was purely a Hollywood creation.”
Nevertheless, she approached the role with sincerity. “Flo represented a type of Southern woman you encounter frequently,” Ms. Holliday reflected in the same interview. “Though not formally educated, she possessed street smarts, humor, and an unwavering determination to persevere.”
Source:
Anita Gates (September 10, 2025). Polly Holliday, a Sassy Waitress on the Sitcom ‘Alice,’ Dies at 88. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/arts/television/polly-holiday-dead.html
Header Photo: Cast photo of the waitresses at Mel’s Diner from the television program Alice. From left: Beth Howland as Vera, Linda Lavin as Alice, and Polly Holliday as Flo.
Photo credit: CBS Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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